I crossed the Mississippi,    turned south at San Antone    A bowie knife, a woolen coat,   a grip bag on my arm   It's all somebody needs to make it through the land    Walk the night, travel light, cross the Rio Grande   Someone strums a mandolin, soft gulf breezes blow   My new life is waiting in old Mexico      I was once a married man livin' peacefully    Hard to say exactly when the devil blinded me    But there was some confusion when my sweet   wife left this world    Darker times, drunken crimes,   a dead young working girl    Left a jailer there in Caroline,    watching me from down below   My new life is waiting in old Mexico      Livin' in the shadows    Runnin' from my fame   Blowin' where the wind blows   Where no one knows my name      In the El Vaquero Bar in the town of Eagle Pass    Moments from my freedom warm whiskey in my glass   Some boracho took me for the man who stole his wife   He went for his forty-four as I reached for my knife    He never fired a second shot he was just too slow   My new life is waiting in old Mexico      I hear of hidden harbors south of Mazatlan    Where cool spring mountain waters    meet the warm Pacific sun   I pray the miles I've traveled and all the sins I bear    Burn away like mornin' fog and vanish in the air    Miles beyond the border now, but many miles to go   My new life is waiting in old Mexico